Police harassing doctors: Private hospitals threaten to close emergency wards

FIRs should be lodged after consent of hospital concerned, doctors demand.

KARACHI: Members of private hospitals’ association have threatened to close down their emergency wards if the police do not stop harassing doctors immediately.

After a family accused two doctors of administering a wrong injection on a five-year-old boy, the police arrested Dr Zaman Malik and Dr Ahmar Hamid of Mamgi Hospital and blamed them for the boy’s death.

Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) called an emergency meeting on Wednesday afternoon, when doctors from different hospitals demanded the release of the arrested men.

According to PMA, the boy was suffering from food poisoning and was in very critical condition. He needed a ventilator, a service not available at Mamgi so the consulting doctor referred him to Aga Khan University Hospital. The boy died on his way to the hospital.

Referring to the doctor’s arrest, PMA Karachi president Dr Idrees Adhi said: “you cannot just barge into someone’s home at 3 am and drag them to a police station. These problems need to be investigated properly rather than by mob justice”.

“My question is why the family took two and a half months to file the case?” asked Dr Sami, a member of Private Hospital and Clinics Association.

Dr Mohammad Farooq Mamgi, owner of Mamgi Hospital, was of the view that the subsequent arrest of the doctors and mob violence created in the hospital vicinity is a result of “political interference of some people for their ulterior motives”. He added that a medical board was set up to investigate the matter but the doctors were “picked up” before that could happen.

Throughout the conference, Dr Adhi maintained that he will not ask doctors to go on strike because ultimately it is the patients who suffer. He was, however, repeatedly pushed from many quarters to do that. The doctors demanded protection on a priority basis. In case of medical negligence, the doctors should not be treated as criminals and an FIR should be lodged only after the consent of the hospital concerned.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2011.